Today I Learned: That The Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic Was One Of The People Who Lied Us Into The Iraq War

And thereby led to the deaths of tens of thousands, the expenditure of trillions, and the diversion of focus and resources from Afghanistan, thus allowing that conflict to fester for 20 'effin years.

Thanks to a friend for the recollection and to Glenn Greenwald for the explication. 

Most folks who have studied the antecedents to the invasion of Iraq are aware of the role of the New York Time in spreading the CIA's lies* about weapons of mass destruction, front and center was reporter Judith Miller but there were many others at the Times who were beating the war drums, for some reason Tom Friedman sticks out in my memory. David Brooks on the op-ed pages is another.

The Times' role as a cog in the killing machine was so blatant that in June 2014 the paper's public editor, Margaret Sullivan, wrote a column: "Covering New War, in Shadow of Old One" where she said the Times' coverage was "flawed, driven by outside agendas and lacking in needed skepticism." She went on: "Nevertheless, given The Times’ troubled history when it comes to this subject, readers have good reason to be wary about what appears in the paper about military intervention in Iraq. And based on what I am already hearing from them, they are....:

That's the American Paper of Record. 

Here's Greenwald at his substack, April 27. His focus is another of the journos who disseminate the CIA's deceits* but he starts out with an interesting take on now Atlantic EiC, Jeffrey Goldberg:

CNN's New "Reporter," Natasha Bertrand, is a Deranged Conspiracy Theorist and Scandal-Plagued CIA Propagandist

The most important axiom for understanding how the U.S. corporate media functions is that there is never accountability for those who serve as propagandists for the U.S. security state. The opposite is true: the more aggressively and recklessly you spread CIA narratives or pro-war manipulation, the more rewarded you will be in that world.

The classic case is Jeffrey Goldberg, who wrote one of the most deceitful and destructive articles of his generation: a lengthy New Yorker article in May, 2002 — right as the propagandistic groundwork for the invasion of Iraq was being laid — that claimed Saddam Hussein had formed an alliance with Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. In February, 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, NPR host Robert Siegel devoted a long segment to this claim. When he asked Goldberg about “a man named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” Goldberg replied: “He is one of several men who might personify a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.”

Needless to say, nothing could generate hatred for someone among the American population — just nine months away from the 9/11 attack — more than associating them with bin Laden. Five months after Goldberg's New Yorker article, the U.S. Congress authorized the use of military force to impose regime change on Iraq; ten months later, the U.S. invaded Iraq; and by September, 2003, close to 70% of Americans believed the lie that Saddam had personally participated in the 9/11 attack.

Goldberg's fabrication-driven article generated ample celebratory media attention and even prestigious journalism awards. It also led to great financial reward and career advancement. In 2007, The Atlantic's publisher David Bradley lured Goldberg away from The New Yorker by lavishing him with a huge signing bonus and even sent exotic horses to entertain Goldberg's children. Goldberg is now the editor-in-chief of that magazine and thus one of the most influential figures in media. In other words, the person who wrote what is arguably the most disastrous article of that decade was one most rewarded by the industry — all because he served the aims of the U.S. security state and its war aims. That is how U.S. corporate journalism functions.

Another illustrative mascot for this lucrative career path is NBC's national security correspondent Ken Dilanian. In 2014, his own former paper, The Los Angeles Times, acknowledged his "collaborative” relationship with the CIA. During his stint there, he mimicked false claims from John Brennan's CIA that no innocent people were killed from a 2012 Obama drone strike, only for human rights groups and leaked documents to prove many were.

A FOIA request produced documents published by The Intercept in 2015 that showed Dilanian submitting his "reporting” to the CIA for approval....

....MUCH MORE

Mr. Goldberg has on his Atlantic staff a guy named David Frum, a neocon former Bush speechwriter who never met a war he didn't like, as long as it was someone else's sons and daughters getting killed and maimed. We'll have more on him and Goldberg as the debacle in Afghanistan unfolds.

*from our post marking the death of John le Carré last year:

Whenever I hear a spook talk, Brennan, Clapper, Dearlove, Steele, any of them, I am reminded of the John le Carré line:

“What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists, and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs?”

— Alec Leamas, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, 1963

They lie for a living. They're professional liars, the very nature of their business is lies and trafficking in lies.
[note: le Carré worked for both MI5 and MI6, he knew these people]